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Could anyone recommend the Supermicro X7DAL-E for my £2.78 Xeon 5130?
Hi,
A little while ago I picked up a Xeon 5130 2.0GHZ Dual-Core FSB1333 CPU for £2.78 including postage. Yes, you read right, £2.78 - it was a typo at a competitors site, I ordered it, and it was honoured. Result, you might say.
Anyway, it was going to go on fleabay but I've been thinking of upgrading my mobo for my E6300 machine recently anyway, so thought I might try a different approach and just go for it with the Xeon. I've been looking round at suitable motherboards that would make use of it to build myself a high-end graphics/video-editing/gaming workstation.
I've seen a Supermicro X7DAL-E elsewhere for about £260 ... looks like a good solid dual-processor ATX mobo with PCI-Express X16. Here's a link to the product details on the Supermicro site:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000X/X7DAL-E.cfm
I would probably eventually get myself another Xeon 5130, or maybe take the plunge and get it at the same time as the mobo - another £213. I know I'll have to get some proper high-spec ECC ram which will set me back a bit more than the boring Elixir DDR2-667 I currently use. I've also got a Radeon X1950XT on order (£120 including postage bargain!) which I was going to add to my E6300 setup.
Now, I'm just wondering if the extra expense is going to be worth my while?
Would I see much of a performance increase over my current rig? (the E6300 is only currently OC'ed to 2.1Ghz due to restrictions of the Asrock board)
I would be running Windows XP Pro 32bit - would it take advantage of both cores of 2 dual-core CPUs if I went that way?
Anybody know the OCing capabilities of this board? I'm not a hardcore OCer and stability and reduced noise are generally more important to me - though I know I'm seriously underusing the potential of my E6300 processor.
And finally, can anybody help me develop some willpower when it comes to buying IT stuff online and stop me maxxing out my credit cards?
Hi,
A little while ago I picked up a Xeon 5130 2.0GHZ Dual-Core FSB1333 CPU for £2.78 including postage. Yes, you read right, £2.78 - it was a typo at a competitors site, I ordered it, and it was honoured. Result, you might say.
Anyway, it was going to go on fleabay but I've been thinking of upgrading my mobo for my E6300 machine recently anyway, so thought I might try a different approach and just go for it with the Xeon. I've been looking round at suitable motherboards that would make use of it to build myself a high-end graphics/video-editing/gaming workstation.
I've seen a Supermicro X7DAL-E elsewhere for about £260 ... looks like a good solid dual-processor ATX mobo with PCI-Express X16. Here's a link to the product details on the Supermicro site:
http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000X/X7DAL-E.cfm
I would probably eventually get myself another Xeon 5130, or maybe take the plunge and get it at the same time as the mobo - another £213. I know I'll have to get some proper high-spec ECC ram which will set me back a bit more than the boring Elixir DDR2-667 I currently use. I've also got a Radeon X1950XT on order (£120 including postage bargain!) which I was going to add to my E6300 setup.
Now, I'm just wondering if the extra expense is going to be worth my while?
Would I see much of a performance increase over my current rig? (the E6300 is only currently OC'ed to 2.1Ghz due to restrictions of the Asrock board)
I would be running Windows XP Pro 32bit - would it take advantage of both cores of 2 dual-core CPUs if I went that way?
Anybody know the OCing capabilities of this board? I'm not a hardcore OCer and stability and reduced noise are generally more important to me - though I know I'm seriously underusing the potential of my E6300 processor.
And finally, can anybody help me develop some willpower when it comes to buying IT stuff online and stop me maxxing out my credit cards?
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